1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a strip baggage tag having a tag part which can be written upon and attached to a bag, and a carbonless-copying control section. It also relates to a method for the production of such a tag.
2. Background Art
In order to identify baggage, particularly in international air travel, baggage tags are used which consist essentially of two parts, namely a tag part which can be attached to an individual bag, and a control section which makes it possible to identify the bag and includes a claim check which is turned over to the person checking the baggage.
When a passenger checks in at the counter of an airline, the destination airport, flight number, etc. are written on the baggage tag; the tag part is then attached to the bag in question and the control section is generally stapled to the ticket. When there are certain words which are to appear on both the tag part and the control section, the writing is done by a copying process, for which purpose a suitably prepared carbonless-copying coating is provided.
Thus, in the case of one known baggage tag of this type, a strip of material is folded at its center to form a two-layer tag part and is provided in the vicinity of the fold with a hole through which a wire or string can be inserted for attaching it to a bag; the carbonless-copying control section is formed at the two layers of the tag part (DE-U 89 11 858). The control section bears at one end an adhesive strip which is covered by silicone paper. Another adhesive strip, also covered by silicone paper, is present on the outer end of the lower layer of the tag part, which serves as a tear-off part and can be detached in addition along a line of perforations.
This baggage tag can be manufactured only at great expense. It requires multiple backings and requires applying layers of adhesive and silicone on different parts and bringing them together. It requires a corresponding expense when the parts are separated from each other after they have been written on, and after they are attached to the bag and to the ticket of the passenger.
In order to avoid the necessity of disposing of silicone-coated parts as waste, in another known baggage tag, the control section is developed as a tear-off part which can be torn off along a line of perforations, and adhesive layers are arranged below both the tear-off part and the tag part and are covered by a silicone-coated cover strip (DE-U 91 10 080). In this case, the silicone coatings leave uncoated transversely extending marginal strips on the cover strips, so that after the control section is detached from the tag part, the silicone-coated parts of the cover strip which remain on the tear-off part as well as on the tag part remain attached to them. In order to expose the adhesive layers, these parts are folded around the edges between the silicone-coated and the uncoated surfaces. It is not possible to provide for writing on the control section.
The disclosures of all prior art materials mentioned herein are expressly incorporated by reference.
It is becoming more and more usual for airlines to provide baggage tags with a bar code in order to have a marking which is proof against falsification and can be read by scanners, and in order to be able to reliably identify and register bags and transport them along their route. Furthermore, it should be possible, not only when initially checking in but also when changing planes or other means of conveyance, to detach additional parts of the baggage tag so as to be able to further continue to follow the routing of the bag in question. These additional parts must, of course, also be provided with a bar code.
Due to the large amount of information to be provided by a bar code, this code must be printed in overlapping fashion, i.e., the lines and spaces must be of different widths in order to be able to impart different meanings to them. Such a bar code can only be applied by contact-less printers, namely so-called "non-impact" printers. Such printers have a very narrow passage slot; furthermore, they produce a very large amount of heat. These printers therefore cannot be used for the subsequent printing of multilayer parts which are coated with pressure-sensitive adhesive since, on the one hand, these parts are of different thicknesses, and on the other hand, the adhesive coating might be melted.